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Preaching at Jinja Church on Easter Sunday gave me the opportunity to share what has become my favorite chapter in the Bible: Luke 24. The chapter records Jesus' first post-resurrection appearance to two disciples as they traveled down the road to the village Emmaus. In the context of Luke's whole gospel, this passage contains all the suspense, irony, and meaning you could want in the last chapter of a great novel. But more significant to me is the way this part of the Gospel Story has exposed my own failure to perceive the presence and work of God around me, and the grace of God to reveal Jesus in spite of my spiritual blindness.
Chapter 24 begins with the disciples still out of the picture, disillusioned and perhaps in disbelief. The last we heard from one them—the zealous Peter, he was a denying his association with Jesus. Three years of walking with Jesus, participating in his mission, witnessing the words and wonders of God-in-the-flesh could not have ended like this. If Jesus was really the Christ of God, the hope and salvation of Israel, how could he have just died a cruel and agonizing death? At the time, they had forgotten that Jesus had been predicting his own death and resurrection three days later ever since Peter first declared him to be the Messiah. Then again, they never really understood this talk of dying and suffering because their expectations of the messiah-that he would triumphantly re-establish Israel as God's chosen nation in a religious and political revolution-blinded them from seeing that Jesus became flesh to make a way for all men and women of every race and status to come to God the Father. Even after hearing the surprising news from the women who went to care for Jesus' dead body, that he was no longer in his tomb, Peter ran to the burial place and saw for himself that it was empty, but still he "went away wondering to himself what had happened." (v12).
Later, two of them began traveling to the nearby village Emmaus. On the way "Jesus himself came up and walked along with them" (v15) although they were unaware of his identity. Playing coy, Jesus asked them, "what are you discussing together as you walk along?" (v17) They were stunned that this "visitor" would be ignorant of the big news and so they began telling Jesus all about Jesus, that "he was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people...but they sentenced him to death and they crucified him." (v20) And then, as if Jesus' death marked the end of the story they sighed with emptiness: "we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel." (v21) Jesus attempted to reframe their interpretation of what had happened: "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things to enter his glory?" (v26) Yet they still did not "see" him; it was Jesus' suffering, after all, they had yet to reconcile to their preconceived picture of the Savior. Only when Jesus broke bread with all of the disciples-just as he did a week earlier-did they recognized him as the Risen Lord.
The road from Jerusalem to Emmaus was only seven miles, but it must have felt like ten thousand for the two traveling disciples when measured in terms of faith. While they walked, drowning in confusion and doubt, they were being forced to give up the Jesus of their shallow expectations so they could see the Jesus beyond their expectations, the Jesus of Resurrection and Life. Their journey on the Easter Sunday continues to penetrate the confines my limited faith. Like Peter, my own expectations of God blind me from seeing Him truthfully and experiencing His life-changing reality. I am surprised when I suffer although I was told to carry a cross when I follow Him. I become frustrated when my well-intentioned plans are thwarted as if the welfare of me and my family and His church rested only in my hands. It is usually in retrospect that I see the presence of Jesus and the activity of God and can say with the disciples, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" (v32)
Perhaps the most challenging notion the two disciples first encounter with the Risen Jesus presents is the frightening possibility that Jesus can be walking right along with us unperceived. He could be present in our lives but hidden by our own ideas about who He is and how He acts today. He could be hidden by our expectations of what a life following Him should look like when our culture defines ideals such as success and failure, even when applied to faith, in ways incompatible with the gospel. I am thankful that I serve a Jesus that cannot be contained within our limited perceptions of Him. He breaks free of these perceptions in the same way he broke free of death. He breaks free of them so that we can have Life and Resurrection.
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